A magnetic resonance imaging (hereinafter referred to as “MRI”) apparatus is an apparatus which acquires chemical and physical microscopic information of a substance by using such a phenomenon that, when a group of target atomic nucleus spins is placed in a magnetic field, the target atomic nucleus spins resonate with a radio frequency magnetic field that rotates at a specific frequency (resonance frequency) corresponding to an inherent magnetic moment of the target atomic nucleus spins and an existing magnetic field intensity, and a signal (magnetic resonance signal) occurs during a relaxation process of the resonated target atomic nucleus spins. In this MRI apparatus, a MOLLI (Modified Look-Locker Inversion Recovery) method is known as a typical method of acquiring a distribution image (T1 map) of T1 values by measuring myocardial T1 (longitudinal relaxation time) values.
In the MOLLI method, one slice is imaged by a Look-Locker method which is synchronized with electrocardiographic waveforms of plural times (typically, three times). In the MOLLI method, in order to secure the precision of T1 measurement, a wait time of plural heartbeats needs to be inserted for sufficiently waiting for recovery of longitudinal magnetization after acquisition in one-time Look-Locker. Thus, since no data can be acquired in the wait time, there is a problem that the efficiency of an examination is not good.